


your absence we have borne

by haseo



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Bad End to the max, Don’t copy to another site, M/M, major character deaths, the androids' future is ruined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 23:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haseo/pseuds/haseo
Summary: Markus always knew another Connor had returned from CyberLife tower.





	your absence we have borne

**Author's Note:**

> been sitting on this for ages but i realized i'd never do more with it. no beta. no nothing.

Before his thorium pump is pulled out, before he sees the countdown to his shut down, Markus knows it’s been coming.

He’s been waiting.

He should fight. For his people, for himself, for Connor, but he’s known for what seems like too long that now it’s happening, he feels nothing.

As Markus falls to his knees, he stares up at Connor’s face, familiar yet foreign.

Who are you? he often wondered, when Connor’s eyes didn’t carry the same glint, when his expressions were slightly off, when the tilt of his head and the way he blinked were wrong. Yet, Connor had been close enough to the Connor Markus knew that he could let himself believe it was a trick of the light, or a ghostly imprint of the Connor he’d lost at the CyberLife tower.

It’s surprising – even when distorted, Connor’s anguish looks the same on his imposter’s face.

“You look upset,” Markus feels separate from himself even as he processes a ‘Mission Accomplished’ must be displaying on Connor’s HUD and he should care more about it than he doesn’t.

Connor’s crooked smile is shaky and the hard lines of victory on his face shatter.

“I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for you, Markus. Or anything at all.”

Even his voice is like Connor’s, the sharper edges and jagged tones a shadow of what could have been a crueler Connor, had the one he knew survived.

Markus knew all along.

It was just that they were so similar. This Connor was close enough. If anything, they were monstrously, somehow the same Connor, like a shadow split in two directions by the right lighting.

“Why? Why did you let me?” The upward curves of Connor’s lips are broken and Markus misses the smile he remembers at Woodward.

It almost looks as if this Connor’s eyes are wet but Markus’ lagging systems are probably superimposing images of Connor’s bright, sad eyes from Woodward to find some semblance of the Connor he knew in this one.

Good, a distant part of Markus thinks, let one of us mourn for him now, as I’ve swallowed oceans of sorrow and felt no relief.

“I wanted…I hoped I’d see him again. In you.”

Markus’ eyes wander to the thorium pump unsteadily held by Connor’s fingers. He feels tired. He’d been tired.

Connor’s eyes are hard again, stony like Connor’s never were, but his entire expression has cracked, losing the cold bite Markus has adjusted to in the absence of Connor’s warmth.

In the absence of Carl’s wisdom, the absence of the androids who survived Jericho only to die like dogs during their demonstration to free those in the camps, and the fact he’d never get to apologize to North for doing nothing.

“I did,” Markus admits as the timer hits 00:00:00.

The last thing he sees is Connor’s face, panicking, as he pretends he’ll see his Connor again, but knows from his first few hours in Jericho – too many lifetimes ago – that there’s nothing for androids after deactivation.

He hears Connor’s voice call out his name and imagines he’s going home.

**Author's Note:**

> [spoiler art](https://twitter.com/devilhavemercy/status/1176714995737849856) that's been rotting with this fic on my ssd since dec'18 (!?) lmao


End file.
